You belong here. Even if you don’t believe you do. Even if you don’t feel worthy or deserving of belonging, you do belong. Even if you think you are a mistake or were told you are. It is not true. You belong here simply because you are here. Life wanted you here. The truth that you belong might take a while to sink into your cells. It’s your birthright as Andy Harkin says in the video below.
Tap on whatever point(s) feel right and say whatever you feel in response to belonging. Some suggestions below are:
I belong here This is my home (your body, the earth, whatever feels right) I stand upon the earth, which is my home I feel my feet on the ground Connecting me to my home I feel my body standing firmly on the earth I am coming home to my body too Life wants me here I belong My body belongs to me I belong to my body Which is my home in this life My home standing upon a bigger home Which houses all of us We all belong here
Immediately facing, or perceiving danger/threat, puts our body into defence mode. This isn’t supposed to happen on a constant basis, we’re meant to return to homeostasis after, hopefully, a short period of threat, but many of us in the modern world are living with constant threat and danger.
Dr Robert Naviaux states that we are facing new stressors our ancestors never encountered which is leading to a wave of new diseases and an increase in diseases that used to be rare. He describes the cell danger response (CDR) as the underlying unity that links various dis-eases such as chronic fatigue syndrome, PTSD, autism, depression, primary mitochondrial disease and many more. I discovered his research through Dr Veronique Mead who wrote this blog post on the CDR.
Try tapping on the following phrases customising/changing them to suit you, download the EFT short cut or basic recipe diagram and procedure here.
Even though my cells are in danger (or feel as if they are), I love and accept my cells Even though my cells are reacting to an unsafe environment (this can be real or perceived, it doesn’t matter), I’m grateful that my cells are trying to defend and protect me as best they can Even though my cells are exhausted from being constantly on guard and in survival mode, maybe I can find ways for them to relax and feel safer
Top of head: This danger/threat
Eyebrow: It feels …
Side of eye: Jarring (fill in however you feel)
Under eye: Like my cells can’t relax
Under the nose: Because it’s not safe to relax
Under the chin: I have to be on guard
Collar bone: All the time
Under arm: Because …
Top of head: I wonder if I can help calm this sense of danger
Eyebrow: Even a little bit
Side of eye: And give my cells a break
Under eye: So they don’t have to word so hard
Under the nose: To defend and protect me
Under the chin: They can do other things
Collar bone: That can help me
Under arm: Like repair and rejuvenate
Top of head: If I’m facing immediate danger
Eyebrow: My cells respond immediately
Side of eye: But they also do that
Under eye: If I perceive or imagine threat
Under the nose: That’s something I have some control over
Under the chin: And that feels …
Collar bone: Imagining the worst case scenario
Under arm: Isn’t doing me any favours
Top of head: It seems I can’t help it
Eyebrow: At least sometimes
Side of eye: How can I interrupt old ways of reacting
Under eye: I can notice them
Under the nose: And not judge them
Under the chin: Noticing and being aware is a big step
Collar bone: It can help me be kinder to myself
Under arm: I don’t have to do it perfectly
Top of head: Ever
Eyebrow: I just need to find some comfort and calm, however small
Side of eye: To interrupt this sense of danger
Under eye: Especially when I’m not facing immediate danger
Under the nose: I need to let my cells know, this is an old pattern/imprint
Under the chin: That we can transform
Collar bone: So we can be
Under arm: The best we can be
Top of head: Being in survival mode
Eyebrow: Feels …
Side of eye: My cells and I want to thrive
Under eye: My cells are spending all their energy on defence and protection
Under the nose: Instead of repair and rejuvenation
Under the chin: My cells are helping me the best they can
Collar bone: And I want to help my cells that best I can
Under arm: I’m starting now
I was going to write a post about what can we tolerate after hearing what Dr Datis Kharrazian said about it on the Interconnected series by Dr Pedram Shojai, but I had already posted about it in 2013.
But it has lead to this post which is also about tolerance, stress, diversity, inclusivity and integration on a micro and macro level.
Mirroring the mind body split, we have the split between the central nervous system and the enteric nervous system, or to put it in everyday terms: the brain and the gut. This is most definitely changing in many circles, but very very slowly in the mainstream.
As a reaction to the dominance of the brain and the emphasis on reason, logic, reductionism etc. over the last few hundred years, we have more and more emphasis on the body which is great. But focusing only on the body or the brain is not an integrative approach. Humans are systems living within systems and I think any approach to health, mental and physical, needs a systems approach. We cannot afford to leave anything out of the health equation if we want good health and vitality.
Something that Dr Kharrazian said about tolerance made me think about my own tolerance levels over the last 10 years or so; and they haven’t been great. My tolerance for unhealthy chemicals is really low, I smell things I never used to smell. In fact I react to them because I have developed such a low tolerance, which is actually a good thing as it is pointing me to something that I need to work on for my mental and physical health which is the health of my gut.
It also mirrors my tolerance for other things in life which has also been low and has led to me having a ‘short fuse’ for things I would have normally taken in my stride. Or did I ever take them in my stride? Did I just push them down, not wanting to deal with them? And like so many, one day the straw broke the camel’s back and I was forced to deal with the mountain of stuff I had avoided.
We don’t realise that stress affects everything, especially our microbiome. Research is showing just how important it is to have good diversity of bacteria in our gut for our overall health, but it is especially exciting to realise just how much it affects our mental health. Everything we ingest is important to our health; food, experiences, other people, the stuff we read, watch and focus on. Which is why we need to be as selective as we can with the things we ingest and food is probably the easiest place to start for most people. It’s certainly easier to control than other people!
The gut lining completely regenerates itself in just 5 days. Try eating things you’ve never eaten before. This ensures good diversity in your gut. Increase your intake of vegetables, fruits and healthy fats. Drink lots of clean water. Chew your food slowly and sit down and relax when you eat. These simple things will help you enormously. Slow down in general, don’t even try to multi task, it overwhelms us and causes unnecessary stress.
Setbacks are inevitable; they don’t mean there’s something wrong with you or that things will never get better. By being prepared for setbacks, we know that we’re still ok when they happen and that our journey doesn’t always take a straight path.
Psychiatrist, Bessel van der Kolk says our biggest fear is that our pain will never end. However, fearing something doesn’t make it true, though it can certainly feel true. If you are afraid that things will never change, it is a really important issue to tap on.
It’s vital to be honest about how you really feel. The bigger the emotional charge you have on something, the more you realise you’ve hit gold in terms of being able to resolve what’s really bothering you. It can be scary to admit our fears around certain things, it can make them seem more real, but they are already real to you and tapping on them can help you to soothe them.
If I've learned anything in life, it's that I may as well be myself. It's too exhausting to live any other way. We like it (mostly) when people are themselves and we can sense it when they're not being themselves. We exhaust ourselves by playing along with any falseness, whether it comes from us or others.
It's not always easy to be ourself and growing up, we might not have had the chance and safety to be ourself and discover who we truly are. But I think we've always had a sense of it, deep down. It's up to us to live into who we really are. I think life calls us to do that.
It takes courage to be yourself. Remember, you're being yourself to be true to yourself, not to piss others off. And you will piss some people off when you know yourself; what you want, don't want, what you will tolerate and what you won't.
The good thing is that people will trust your Yeses when you say No on the odd occasion or maybe even every time you want to say No :-)
Making sense of your life is not about what you’ve been through but how you make sense of it, which I think is a really hopeful message. Even if you had a horrific upbringing, you can still make sense of it and be who you truly are, not what your conditioning taught you to be.
You can’t make sense of your life if you haven’t looked at how you’ve lived, what has influenced you, why you do, think and feel the way you do. You can’t make sense of your life if you live in denial and avoidance. You can’t make sense of your life by disowning and dissociating from what’s painful even though it’s totally understandable that you do that.
Life calls you to make sense of your life; to digest, metabolise and experience all of your experiences so they can fall into their right place and you can be the person you are meant to be.
When you can’t accept something, be honest about it. At least you won’t have the pressure of lying about how you feel which is exhausting.
Tapping on the truth of how you feel is what will get you results. You don’t need to dress up how you feel before you tap, just let rip on your honest feelings and watch how things shift. If you think you’re being negative, then tap on that first.
Balos beach, Crete, Greece
I hope the following phrases help you, remember to customise them to suit your feelings and situation.
Even though I think I’m being negative by telling the truth, I completely accept how I feel Even though I don’t accept how I feel, I accept the truth of that Even though I can’t be with this feeling, I accept how I feel Even though I’m afraid that this will never end because no matter what I do it doesn’t go away, I accept how frustrated I feel Even though I brace against these body sensations because they feel so awful, I can’t help myself, it’s a knee jerk reaction, maybe I can feel 10 seconds of them Even though I’m just so exhausted fighting, struggling, trying to get better and it seems the harder I try, the worse I feel, I love and accept myself anyway Even though I can’t find any compassion and kindness for these feelings and sensations right now, that’s ok Even though I don’t see any way out of this … I choose to remain open, what have I got to lose? Even though if I say it out loud or even admit to it silently, I feel it makes it more true, I accept how I feel
As we’re healing from trauma one of the most important things, as Babette Rothschild says, is to improve the quality of our daily life as much as we can.
One way we can do that is by paying attention to how comfortable we feel in the moment: physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
What do you do if you’re out walking and you get a tiny pebble in your sandal and it doesn’t feel really uncomfortable right there and then but you might feel sorer at the end of your walk if you don’t take it out, but you also think that taking off your sandal to shake the pebble out is too much hassle.
The small things become the big things so take that pebble out, make your walk as comfortable as possible. Listen to what your body is saying to you. Stop overriding its messages. This is how we show ourselves respect and take ourselves seriously. Making yourself as comfortable as you can be in any given moment is really really important.
So drink when you’re thirsty, eat when you’re hungry, rest when you’re tired. So many of us have a pattern of pushing through. We don’t trust that things will work out if we don’t struggle or fight for it. We might even think we’ll get some sort of prize for trying as hard as we can. Or maybe we have a belief that says the more we do, the more value we have. When we take it easy we feel lazy, good for nothing. It might even make us anxious to do less, never mind nothing.
Watch out for signs of discomfort and what you do to alleviate that discomfort. It might be easier to make yourself more physically comfortable initially as you usually only have yourself to answer to in this regard. But maybe emotionally you’re not comfortable saying No. Feeling comfortable in this instance in akin to feeling safe, they often go together. Remember by saying Yes when you don’t want to, is equivalent to saying No to yourself. Try saying No on the smaller things with people you feel safer with and see how it feels. Like anything, we get better with practice and dealing with whatever consequences there might be. Because there are consequences either way, it just depends on what consequences we’re comfortable with, or can become comfortable with.
The reenactment of trauma, or repetition compulsion as Freud called it, is everywhere. In our own individual lives and collectively.
If we don’t know about this phenomenon, we’ll think we’re being persecuted, punished, cursed, because we’re bad, shameful, unlovable or unacceptable. Insert whatever adjective was used to ever deride you and any conclusion that you came to as a result of how others treated you and your experiences.
Being traumatised is like being in a perpetual state of indigestion. It feels awful and we’re often desperate to resolve it once it starts to bubble up from our too full barrels: causing us debilitating symptoms such as insomnia, anxiety and depression.
We wouldn’t walk around for 40 years with a piece of food stuck in our throats but we walk around with many many undigested experiences because they felt and feel too overwhelming to feel. That’s why we dissociate, dissociation is what creates trauma as defined by psychiatrist Ivor Browne: unexperienced experience. And it’s good (and essential sometimes) that we dissociate, it’s a brilliant survival mechanism until it becomes a noose around our necks.
Sheskinmore, County Donegal, Ireland
I believe trauma repeats so we can resolve it. We don’t often see it that way though, and nor do others. There are many who rush to condemn us when we show signs of unresolved trauma especially when it is acted out, rather than in. Examples of act outs are violence, abuse, bullying and examples of acting in are agoraphobia and chronic illness to name a few. Many see the signs of trauma being reenacted as evidence of disorder and mental illness. I see it as a sign of unresolved trauma or as Freud said*: “an urge inherent in organic life to restore an earlier state of things”. We literally cannot stand it, or thrive, when things are left incomplete, unexperienced and undigested.
The repetition of trauma gives rise to the most agonising frustration that whatever we’re going through will never end which leads us to feel hopeless and that we can’t escape our situation. It’s like a merry-go-round we can’t get off. But we can get off.
When you see repeating patterns in your life, write them down, write how they make you feel, feel into your answers, even if only for 10 seconds. Try feeling for a bit longer the next time, maybe 15 seconds. The repetition is an opening, an invitation to see the real truth of who you really are before any muck obscured your vision.
*Freud S: Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), translated and edited by Strachey J. New York, WW Norton, 1961
One of the most debilitating symptoms of undischarged traumatic stress is insomnia. When you can’t fall sleep, sleep only a few hours a night or you wake up constantly during the night, you just can’t function properly. Lack of sleep brings us to our knees, literally and metaphorically.
Insomnia is not a symptom you can easily ignore. If it goes on for longer than a few months, sleep becomes an obsession. It’s akin to being afraid of having a panic attack: you become more and more afraid of not sleeping and your entire life starts to revolve around getting as much sleep as you can, however you can. You will try anything to get a few hours sleep so you don’t go through your day like a zombie.
When you’re suffering from insomnia, your nervous system is in sympathetic mode, that is, flight or fight. Insomnia is usually the result of years and years worth of thwarted flight and fight responses that you couldn’t complete because of survival and safety issues. You might have been a good sleeper at one time, and something that might have seemed harmless was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
You might also have spent years in freeze mode. Sometimes it feels better to be numb than to feel anything. We can also oscillate between being shutdown and being overwhelmed. However, as time goes by things have a way of melting and erupting, whether we want them to or not. We become triggered more easily because our barrels only have so much space. Something has got to give if nothing is being emptied.
Insomnia is one of those issues you just have to get to the root of. If you don’t, you might sleep well some nights and then go back to either waking through the night or not being able to fall asleep: two steps forward, 6 steps back.
Your quality of sleep is a strong litmus test for your stress levels, so lowering your stress levels on a daily basis is really important. But so is getting to the root of why we’re stressed. Sometimes we don’t have any control over some of our stressors because of circumstances, but start where you are and do the best you can. A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step as Martin Luther King said.
Don’t wait until bedtime to relax, take every opportunity during the day to observe your breath, where you might be pushing through, when you’re not listening to your body, when you clench or brace and so on. Learning to sleep well again involves changes in how you live your life. What was once adaptive isn’t serving you anymore so you need to learn a new way of being in the world that is more true to who you really are.
Fill in the blanks to these statements and tap on your answers. Trust what comes up.
When I think of going to bed at night I feel … Sleeping feels … Not sleeping feels ... A part of me doesn’t feel safe to sleep deeply ... A part of my body feels … which keeps me awake (or does it feel like the whole of your body, be specific about where you feel stress/tightness/constriction) and that feels ... My thoughts become distorted when I’m stressed and it’s hard not to believe them ... Not sleeping and how it feels reminds me of ...
I have just finished reading Kathy Brous’ new book, Don’t Try This Alone: The Silent Epidemic of Attachment Disorder. I laughed and I cried throughout, and most of all I felt hopeful after finishing it. Her tenacity and willingness to reach out for help and to keep going is amazing.
One of the gems I got from the book was to pin the tail, or tale, on the right person or situation, or you’ll never get true relief. Now I’ve heard that said a millions times before in different words, but the way she explained it really struck a chord with me. I really really got it. Maybe we need things said a thousand different ways over many years to really download it into our cells.
She would repeat “Move the tale, move the tale” throughout the book when she was recounting incidents/people where she felt triggered. And what she meant by that was to go back to when you first felt that same way. That is, the first person or situation that triggered that feeling or sensation in you.
Oftentimes, it’s our parents or another important figure in our early life who is the initiator but we often find it easier to project our wounds onto others and this is why we don’t find complete relief. Or maybe we’ve forgotten, or suppressed where the real pain came from just because it’s too painful. We pay attention to current woes not linking them to our past when they first happened.
In hypnotherapy, this is called the initiating event and everything else that happens after that is a trigger; an echo or reminder of the original experience. Because we’re so good at dissociating from pain, especially early pain, the initiating experience might not trigger us until we’re in our 20s or at 50 as in Kathy’s case. Dissociation is a brilliant survival mechanism until it becomes chronic and persistent.
There’s a lot of shame surrounding the emotion of anger. You are shamed for having it, feeling it and whatever you do, don’t dare express it. This is especially true for women. Is it any wonder anger gets stuck when many of us don’t have a clue what to do with it?
We are told it’s not a real emotion because it’s acting as a cover for other emotions like sadness which is a much more respectable emotion to have, at least in some circles. If I had a cent for every time I’ve seen a meme or quote deriding anger, I’d be a millionaire.
As Karla McLaren reminds us in The Language of Emotions, emotions can arise in clusters. When we allow anger to do its job of protecting us, emotions like sadness may well come up but not because we’ve gotten rid of anger because it’s “bad” and a smokescreen for other, more acceptable emotions; but because we’ve allowed ourself to feel it and its accompanying sensations in the body. There are very few experiences in life that call for just one emotion.
I think another reason anger is so disparaged is because it’s a reminder that we’re animals, we are instinctual and we have a wild side. Anger can feel fierce, scary, out of control and too powerful but that’s only because we haven’t learned how to properly use and feel it. The concept that we have the potential to be wild, instinctual animals doesn’t conform to many people’s idea of what constitutes a “civilised” society. But we’re not doing so great as a civilised society, are we? We’ve a myriad of chronic health problems caused by unresolved trauma, not to mention the violence that we see against people and nature. Unlike what many seem to think, these issues aren’t caused by anger, they are caused by unfelt anger and other emotions. As psychiatrist Ivor Browne says; trauma is unexperienced experience.
I think anger must be the most misunderstood, maligned and disowned emotion, though fear is a close second.
How many times have you heard someone being described as an “angry person”? The ironic thing is, this label is usually given by somebody who disowns their anger, is afraid of anger and is supposedly never angry which I don’t buy for one minute.
People who pretend, unsuccessfully, that they are never angry because anger is a “bad”, “low vibration” and “negative” emotion, usually act it out in passive aggressive ways, while smugly thinking that it’s not anger.
One of the most important things that I’ve ever heard about anger is from Karla McLaren who says that if we don’t honour our anger and let it do its job (reinstate healthy boundaries, and say a healthy No), fear will have to step in. That’s when things get really messy and complicated. Here is an excerpt from her book, The Language of Emotions:
If you can imagine your healthy anger surrounding you— protecting you, defining you, and constantly monitoring your behaviour—you can easily see that trouble with your anger will degrade your psychological boundaries, your relationships, your personal space, and your self-respect. If your anger is not channelled properly and honourably, you’ll exhibit poor psychological hygiene. In this case, your fear will need to move forward in your psyche, not to increase your intuition and focus, nor to simply help you respond to change or novel stimuli, but just to help you make it from one moment to the next.
Without your boundary, you’ll be unable to monitor your behaviour or identify proper behaviour in others (which means your relationships will consistently unsettle you), you’ll dishonour people or let them dishonour you for no good reason, and you’ll be vulnerable most of the time. When you’re in this sort of turmoil, your relationship with your fear will decay almost immediately. You’ll have no privacy and no sacred space in which to regulate your emotions, and though your fear will move forward to protect you, its intensity may actually destabilise you when your boundary is weak. Fear asks you to focus yourself, but that’s nearly impossible when you don’t know where you begin or end; therefore, your increased focus will most likely turn into anxiety or paranoia.
Do you know what happens when we disown anger? It gets stuck in our bodies because we refuse to acknowledge it, never mind feel it. Paradoxically, we become the very people we don’t want to be, which is an “angry person”. And because we’re so angry but are in denial about being angry, many things become the trigger for our unacknowledged, unfelt anger. We are literally like pressure cookers waiting to explode which lowers our immune systems and creates all sorts of health problems.
Try tapping on the following and repeat whatever feels right on all the points, or just tune in to how you feel and tap without words:
Even though I’ve grown up thinking that anger was bad and I am bad for feeling it, I love and accept myself anyway Even though my culture tells me that angry people are … and I don’t want to be one of those,I completely accept how I feel Even though I don’t know how to feel anger, that’s ok, I can learn Even though anger feels … in my body and that makes me feel … I completely accept my feelings
Your shell protects you but it also keeps you small. It is safe but it is also constricting. It is comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. It is your house but it is not your true home.
To grow we need to move and that means change, and change can feel very frightening when our foundations are shaky. We hold on for dear life, even if we’re miserable. Notwithstanding all of that, we have an inherent ability and desire to grow, otherwise it wouldn’t feel so painful being confined in our shells.
When our development is stunted, at any age, we suffer. Life is all about moving, growing, changing, developing and evolving. It is against our nature to become stagnant, things will out eventually. The dam that we’ve built to protect us from a river of unwanted emotions and sensations won’t last forever. Some of us wait until the dam bursts and then we’re forced to face our pain but we can choose to feel it before that happens.
Most of the information I already knew as I’ve followed his work for a long time, but I also learned a lot of new things because he has a way of using language that makes you look at something you knew in a completely new light which is a real gift. He’s a poet at heart. He also recommended EFT as a modality for healing trauma which was great to hear.
Some of the gems that I took with me from his workshop were:
Growth happens when we are able to be soft and vulnerable. Gabor used the analogy of a crab having to shed their shell in order to be able to grow. Of course the price of this is that he’s soft and vulnerable while growing and could be hurt as he’s more defenceless. But there’s no other way to grow.
What I understand from this is that trauma is like a too tight and constricting shell that we can’t seem to shed, however hard we try. It keeps us small and safe but at a huge price. But trying and struggling too hard to shed the shell just doesn’t work. We need to be gentle with that shell that has protected us when we needed it, and when the time is right, and we feel safe enough to be soft and vulnerable again (or for the first time), the shell will come off.
Peer attachment and orientation does our children no favours. Children are supposed to attach to (hopefully) wise adults who can provide them with unconditional love and a safe place to grow, make mistakes and learn from those mistakes without being shamed and ridiculed.
The coping mechanisms that we learned in early childhood to survive become our personality. But they are not who we truly are. I really believe that healing trauma is the journey back to our true self. As Gabor said, it’s why we call it recovery, we are recovering our true self when we heal trauma.
When we fail to fully individuate from our parents/caregivers (an extremely common phenomenon), we feel more pressure from our peers. This is because we’re not sure of who we are, we don’t love and accept ourself, maybe we even feel we are bad people. This is not to say we’ll never feel pressure from our peers, but if we’re true to our real self and feel fundamentally ok about that self, it won’t incapacitate us as it can so often do.
We often have to choose between attachment and authenticity, especially as children. Attachment is a biological imperative, we need it and sometimes we have to give up who we truly are to get love, even though what we get can be very far from real love. As adults, we can make another choice and choose our authentic selves.
Isn’t the concept of good and bad families just the most ridiculous thing you have ever heard of?
When some people talk of ‘good’ families, they’re not referring to members of that family treating each other, and others, with kindness and empathy. They’re referring to living in the ‘right’ neighbourhood, being white, having money, having a formal education; though if you have enough money, they might make allowances for you about the education part.
Being from a ‘bad’ family means living in a financially poor area in the ‘wrong’ neighbourhood, where most people who aren’t white live, and there is usually addiction, violence and abuse in the home. Rather than these things being seen as signs of unresolved trauma, they are viewed as badness, laziness, good for nothingness and maybe most of all, a sense of they being inferior to 'good' families.
How many times have you heard someone, usually a man having committed a sexual crime, getting off scot free for being from a ‘good family’ and being a so-called upstanding member of society? Are we joking? Why on earth is that taken into account in a court of law? He has committed a crime and as the saying goes, he must do the time. Actions have consequences, it isn’t about punishing someone, because as we know, that doesn’t work. No one can be rehabilitated if they or we don’t hold them accountable for their actions.
If you’re sexually abused by your father and your mother is complicit in that abuse and therefore it continues, you are utterly and totally betrayed. Your childhood is gone. To add insult to injury, much of society judges you for having a father and mother who not only didn’t love you, but abused you. But your parents’ actions and behaviour say absolutely nothing about the person you are. Talk about isolation. When you grow up, maybe you have to make the choice to cut contact with your parents for your own sanity and maybe even not see your extended family because there is collusion and secrecy. A double whammy if ever there was one. We, as a society can do so much better by people who have been hurt so terribly.
As Oprah said recently when she reported on the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, we should be asking “What happened to you?”, not, “What’s wrong with you?”. The awful thing is, most people don’t even have the courage to ask “What’s wrong with you?” straight to your face, they’ll act it out in the most unkind ways instead.
The truth is, people who have been traumatised at the hands of their caregivers are often shamed for the very abuse they have had to suffer. They already feel bad because a child will never ever blame their parent because they need them to survive. Children already feel at fault and responsible for the abuse, and society, instead of showing compassion and understanding, heaps more shame upon them by saying that they came from a ‘bad’ family, not a traumatised family.
I don’t think we realise just how important and transformative acknowledging how we feel is. We don’t have to like what we’re feeling. We don’t even have to like our self for feeling what we’re feeling. We just need to acknowledge the feeling is there for whatever reason and tapping can help us enormously with this.
There is something really powerful about admitting exactly how you feel and tapping on it. One of the biggest core beliefs that blocks the feeling of so-called negative emotions is feeling like we’re a bad person for feeling a certain way.
Typically, this will be anger for women and fear for men. But remember, you can tap on anything, for example:
Even though I’m feeling angry at … and it makes me feel like a bad person/disloyal/guilty/ashamed, I deeply and completely accept myself anyway. Even though I feel jealous of … and I shouldn’t feel this way because … I completely accept how I feel about this and myself Even though I’m afraid of … and I’m weak for feeling this way because … I completely accept myself anyway
You’ll find you’ll start to shift in your attitude towards “negative” emotions and how you feel about yourself when you tap. You could also ask yourself where you picked up these messages about certain emotions and tap on that too.
There really is no such thing as a negative emotion, just emotions that are difficult to feel. Once you start to acknowledge how you feel and allow yourself to feel it, the emotion will have done its job and won’t get stuck in your body or mind as dis-ease. What we don’t feel, we act out or in. Feeling is one of the most important things we can do to improve our life and health.
Unresolved trauma dysregulates your nervous system. Every organ in your body is affected by your nervous system, therefore a dysregulated nervous system can cause dis-ease in any part of your body, including your brain.
As the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE) shows, unresolved trauma, especially early or developmental trauma, can cause many chronic health issues later on in life, both mental and physical. This is the reason why psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk says that unresolved trauma is one of the biggest public health problems in the world. Just look around you to see the evidence of that statement.
The key word here is: unresolved. We humans have lost touch with the many ways we have resolved trauma in our past. We would never have survived or evolved to this point, had we not been able to resolve most of our traumas.
Everyone is different, there isn’t any one technique, exercise or tool that works on its own, it’s a unique combination of what works for you at different times. There is one thing that is non negotiable though, and that is the support/connection/love/presence of our self and others. It is the one ingredient that is transformative.
In the last year I’ve come to know and appreciate the value of resting. I used to have a pattern of pushing through things, as so many of us do, getting my value from what I did, rather than who I was. If I didn’t feel I did enough during the day, it got to the point where I felt I didn’t deserve a good night’s sleep.
Something that I have found very helpful for helping me to rest deeply are yoga nidra meditations. I’m listening to Daring to Rest by Karen Brody at the moment and it’s really good. We need to take some time out every day where we can have some silence and down time. It can really help soothe our frazzled nerves in the hectic, information overload world that we live in. Tapping can also help, but we can often slide into ‘getting rid of’ it mode and we end up trying too hard/struggling/pushing through to fix/heal ourself. Try resting alongside whatever methods work for you and don’t forget to practice being human, give yourself a rest from doing.
Try tapping on:
Even though I need to struggle because … I completely accept how I feel Even though I don’t know how to stop … I accept myself anyway Even though my self worth is wrapped up in what I do, achieve, and others, that’s ok, I’m doing the best I can
Top of the head: Maybe I can contemplate doing a little less
Eyebrow: How does that feel?
Side of eye: It feels …
Under the eye: It’s exhausting doing, doing, doing
Under the nose: I can’t keep this pace up
Under the chin: I need to rest
Collar bone: How does that feel?
Under the arm: It feels …
Top of the head: Pushing through things has become a pattern
Eyebrow: Keeping busy helps me …
Side of eye: If I sat still I’d feel …
Under the eye: And that makes me feel …
Under the nose: Maybe I can contemplate resting more
Under the chin: The benefits would be enormous
Collar bone: I need this
Under the arm: And I want to rest more
Keep tapping on whatever feels right for you.
I'd like to mention a book that has also helped me which is The Way of Rest by Jeff Foster.
Most of the time, I have no problem finding a subject to write about, in fact, it can be overwhelming, as sometimes I’ve too much to write about and I don’t feel I pay the subject as much attention as it deserves. This Friday, Ireland will vote on whether to repeal the 8th amendment and I’ve been wanting to write something on it as it is a subject very close to my heart, but it seemed too daunting. But I’m going to scribble something down anyway, as it’s too important not to.
Unlike what many are saying, Friday’s referendum is not an abortion referendum, even though abortion will be permitted in certain situations if the 8th is repealed. The 8th amendment affects all pregnant people, a point that is being missed by many, particularly the no side who want to keep the emotive subject of abortion at the forefront in order to divide and conquer.
As the Association for the Improvement in Maternity Services (AIMSI) have stated, the 8th affects women who are 40 weeks pregnant many more times than a woman who is 12 weeks pregnant. Just ask Mother B, aka Geraldine Williams, who the HSE took to the high court in 2016 for forced sedation and caesarean when she was 40 weeks pregnant. All she wanted was a trial of labour on her fourth child, but she wasn’t allowed to exercise that choice because of the 8th. You can hear the spine chilling details of that high court order here (starts at 6:50).
No pregnant woman can legally exercise choice, it is only random luck and a reasonable health care provider that many more women aren’t taken to court for forced procedures. But many are threatened with courts, the gardaà and social services because of the 8th, when/if they don’t comply with, or question medical advice. And who wouldn’t comply with such threats at such a vulnerable time? Mother A was also taken to court in 2013 for forced sedation and surgery, but before the judge could rule, she agreed to a caesarean. I’m sure under the most extreme duress and stress. When anyone is threatened in this manner, they will go into fight/flight/freeze. When it happens to a pregnant woman, her baby is also affected by the cascade of stress hormones flooding through her body. So much for the “love them both” group’s claims huh?
As it is, many women undergo procedures, not only without their informed consent, but without their knowledge as in the case of Ciara Hamilton.
My personal experience is that if you question anything, you are deemed a trouble maker and the attitude is, who the hell do you think you are? I was actually told I was “famous” in the hospital by one midwife towards the end of my pregnancy, so much for privacy and confidentiality huh? Have we replaced the church with doctors in Ireland? It seems so, in many cases. I didn’t realise doctors were gods that couldn’t be questioned. But the fact is, a doctor secure in their own knowledge and expertise, will actually welcome questions and won’t be phased by them. We need more doctors like that.
We have a put up and shut up culture here in Ireland and nowhere is that more true when it comes to women. There is also a very strong culture of bullying, in fact it’s endemic. Pregnant women are bullied all the time when they ask questions, want to know more, do their own research and when they want to take an active part in their care. It seems the powers that be would much rather we were passive, it makes their job much easier. Unfortunately and disgracefully, the 8th allows for some health care providers to abuse it by bullying women into submission and obedience.
If the 8th is repealed, our human right to bodily autonomy, which is stripped from us the moment we become pregnant, will be returned.
We will then be able to exercise free will and choice, something we can’t currently do under the 8th.
We will have the legal right to informed consent and/or refusal returned to us, another thing that the 8th took away.
We will also have the right to unrestricted abortions up to 12 weeks gestation. After 12 weeks, abortion is only permitted in certain circumstances such as fatal foetal abnormality and/or serious risk to life and health, so the claims that a foetus can be aborted at 6 months is a downright lie that the no side is propagating. You can find out more about the facts here.
Needless to say, I will be voting with the biggest yes of my life this Friday for every woman that was affected, is affected and could be affected by the 8th amendment in whatever manner. And for every woman who has ever suffered at the hands of the Irish state and church because of their misogyny.
When a wild animal survives being chased and caught by a predator, and then manages to escape being eaten, they will discharge the energy that their nervous system produced to enable them to flee, fight or freeze, by shaking violently for as long as necessary. If the animal doesn’t discharge this energy, they will become hyper vigilant and see threat and danger everywhere, even when none exists. This hypervigilance exhausts their systems and they will not survive for long if this continues.
The same thing happens to humans after experiencing something traumatic. However we’ve forgotten and been socialised away from our wilder nature, deriding it as primitive, savage, reptilian. Have you ever started to shake or tremble when something traumatic happened, but either you or someone else stopped it? Maybe you were even frightened that it was happening? But once upon a time we did shake and know how to discharge trauma, or we wouldn’t have survived as a species.
When humans are faced with threat, our nervous system gears up to flee or fight, if these defences aren’t possible, we freeze (this is called ’tonic immobility’ in the literature). We can freeze psychologically and/or physically, I believe both are types of dissociation that act as protective analgesics.
When we freeze physically, our muscles will stiffen so as to enable us to remain as still as possible, we might not be able to use our voice, even if we want to. Immobilisation comes from our autonomic (automatic) nervous system and is not under our conscious control. It is crucial to understand this so we don’t later blame ourselves for “not putting up a fight”. We also need society to be more trauma informed about immobilisation, especially in cases of rape and incest. Too often freezing is seen as acquiescence which has profound implications for the victim being more prone to developing PTSD and being retraumatised and the perpetrator not being brought to justice.
When we freeze psychologically, we mentally leave our bodies and can watch what is happening to us as if from afar or above. It helps distance what is unbearable or indigestible in the moment so we can process it at a later date. But as we know, this rarely happens, we become afraid of the many experiences that we’ve dissociated from and we develop strategies to contain them as best we can. Until, they start spilling and leaking into our lives and we can’t ignore them anymore. This is when we might be diagnosed with things like; anxiety, depression, PTSD, fibromyalgia and so on.
It is crucial that we get back in touch with our minds and bodies, slowly and gently so they become safe places for us to inhabit.
Being afraid of fear can be really incapacitating. The capacity to handle any difficult emotion starts when we’re babies. If we’re soothed when we cry and get lots of hugs, kisses and are held close as much as possible, our capacity to feel all of our emotions, without being overwhelmed, grows along with us. Our container or window of tolerance grows, or doesn’t grow, in proportion to the amount of support and love we receive, or don’t receive, throughout our life.
What happens when our caregivers can’t help us build a container within our self, is that we’ll create one for ourselves as best we can. We’ll try and contain any chaos in our environment and ourselves so as not to feel like life is falling down around us. We’ll stuff emotions down into our too small containers so we don’t upset others.
Fear, like all emotions, has its unique sensations in the body. When these sensations feel awful, we have the ability to push them away, for a while, this blocks the energy of that emotion flowing through our bodies and this is where problems start. We’re not talking about pushing emotions away once or twice, we’re talking about dissociating becoming a life time habit and coping strategy.
We all have a tipping point, when our containers become full, they start overflowing. This is when we notice symptoms like depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, unexplained infertility along with many other chronic issues which always have an emotional contributor or cause. Building our capacity or window of tolerance in order to be able to feel painful and difficult emotions cannot be overstated. It is a life changer.
The willingness to look inside and self reflect is not the same as constantly questioning your motives, behaviour and worth. One is taking responsibility, the other is self punishing. Why do you feel you need to be punished?
When you haven’t been able to trust from the start, and haven’t been trusted in turn, you question everything and everyone, but mostly your self. You are unsure of who you are, and as a result you feel ungrounded and scattered. There’s nothing more exhausting than second guessing your self all the time, it creates chaos in your life and in your relationships.
I think the first step in trusting our self is being able to metabolise difficult experiences and people. We can’t metabolise anything that we can’t feel; that we dissociate from; that we can’t accept or that we don’t trust (our feelings for example).
And that takes time and resources. The first step is to learn to trust yourself. Feelings aren’t 100% right 100% of the time, but you know what, in my opinion, mostly they are. So take a risk, if you make a mistake, apologise, either to your self or someone else if you get it wrong.
It is only by using your muscle of trust that you can learn to trust and trust your trusting. You then begin to realise what belongs to you and what doesn’t. This has the effect of lifting burdens that aren’t yours to carry. Natural boundaries form around you because you trust your self and act accordingly.
Are you trying to fix yourself all the time? It’s one thing to want to feel better and another to think/believe that you’re broken, damaged, bad, good for nothing or a waste of space.
Who are we trying to fix ourself for? What do we think will happen once we’re ‘fixed’? Why can’t these things happen now, warts and all?
It’s amazing the different ways perfectionism can show up. I believe perfectionism is born from not being accepted and loved for who we are, just because we exist, so we set out on a journey to ‘prove’ we’re lovable and acceptable. Except that rarely happens, what does happen most of the time is that we end up sick and exhausted.
How does the need to be perfect show up for you? You might not even realise that perfectionism is an issue for you, but if you hate to be criticised, feel inadequate in some way, often feel shame when others disagree with you or don’t like you, the need to be perfect might be behind it.
Try tapping on the following phrases and repeat whatever feels right for you on the tapping points.
Even though I have /need to be perfect (because … for … etc), I accept this need to be perfect Even though I’m trying to fix myself because … and that feels … I accept how I feel at this moment in time Even though there is a drive in me to be/do better (how much of the time?), what would happen if I relaxed that drive a bit? Even though it’s not safe to stop trying to be perfect because … I accept that’s one of the ways I’ve protected myself up until now Even though … could happen if I don’t do things perfectly, how would I feel if that did happen? And what might it remind me of?
Slower is faster when it comes to healing from trauma and most of us are healing from trauma believe it or not. Trauma is much more common than people think it is. However, when we’re in pain, we don’t want to go slow, we want to get better as fast as we can. There’s often a sense of desperation and urgency in our efforts to find help, which can take us out of ourself.
Of course, being traumatised often leaves us bereft of any internal resources too because living/going inside can be very frightening, as that’s where the scary memories, emotions and sensations live. We often have trust issues too, with ourselves and others. Even so, we always have our guidance system available to us, no matter how weak it may seem. You do know what or who is good for you, you need only heed and trust it. I know from experience that it’s the times I didn’t trust that little voice that got me into trouble, not the other way round.
Trauma contracts and constricts our minds and bodies and that contraction needs to unwind slowly*. Our life force is severely diminished by trauma and the sheer power of feeling it again in one go can be too much. If we don’t go slowly, overwhelm is nearly guaranteed.
In an interview with Peter Levine, who is talking about going slow (he calls it titration), Ruth Buczynski asks him whether going slow is “like a homeopathic approach to trauma? A homeopathic dose level of approaching body experiences?” and he replies “Yes! Yes, that’s it! Yes, that is a really good analogy – and it may be more than just an analogy. You know, we have a number of homeopaths, particularly in the European and South American trainings – and, you know, they get it, they really get it; you know, the idea of the smallest amount of stimulus that get the body engaged in its own self-defense mechanisms”.
The minute you start to see signs of overwhelm, stop. Go for a walk, rest, laugh, listen to music or have a bath. This is not unhealthy distraction, this is being kind to yourself because you know you’re reaching your limits (that is, you’re outside your window of tolerance). Pushing through in desperation is not going to help you. This isn’t a race between you and someone else to see who is “fixed” first.
The fact is, retraumatisation is extremely common and can often feel/be worse than anything that has gone before, because you feel like you’re in this never-ending loop of pain that you can’t escape from. And that feels very powerless and helpless.
*Going slowly is not an excuse for a practitioner to drag out sessions to make more money. Trust your instinct on this one and find someone who you trust.
We are born vulnerable and helpless and hopefully, not only will no one take advantage of our vulnerability, they will cherish and nurture it and make it safe for us to trust others with our vulnerability.
Because helplessness and vulnerability can feel very similar, if not the same sometimes, we can shy away from being vulnerable because it can also make us feel helpless. Feeling helpless is one of the core ingredients of being traumatised, which can mean that our vulnerability/helplessness was taken advantage of or abused in some way by others. If we’ve been hurt a lot, or early in life, being vulnerable can feel like too big a risk to take.
Not feeling safe enough to be vulnerable takes a toll on our relationships, we don’t let others see who we really are, so our relationships can’t deepen and become as intimate as they could. We can find it hard to express our needs, because our needs are what make us vulnerable. There can be a lot of shame around having needs, especially with early trauma, so our needs will be denied in order to make us more acceptable to others.
Try tapping on the phrases below and repeat whatever feels right on the tapping points:
Even though feeling vulnerable feels … I honour how that feels for me Even though feeling vulnerable feels … in my body and that feels … I acknowledge how I feel Even though I deny my needs in order not to feel vulnerable, I wonder is that working for me? Even though I feel ashamed of my needs, I’m open to examining that shame
Trauma can occur when a response/action that you wanted/needed to make could not be completed. Usually because your flight and fight (or fawn/friendly) responses were thwarted by overwhelm, either physical or psychological, and you froze. The degree to which we freeze is proportional to how threatened we feel.
Overwhelm can often feel potentially annihilating, especially depending on our stage of development, and therefore will be avoided at all costs by whatever means possible. This avoidance, or dissociation, continues until we have the resources and support to digest the original experience(s) and how we responded to them.
So we have two things to digest, the original traumatic experience(s) and how we responded, for which we often have a lot of self blame such as: I was weak, I’m bad, unlovable, I should have put up a fight, I should have said something, I just stood there, I’m ashamed and so on. In fact, these appraisals, can both predispose us to developing trauma and make it more difficult to recover from it. This is why developing a sense of understanding and compassion for ourselves and why we responded the way we did, is vital.
Trauma can occur as single experiences, and it can also be repeated over and over again. If trauma, particularly repeated trauma, happens at an early developmental stage, its effects can be devastating and can be particularly difficult to recover from, though certainly not impossible.
I think a major theme that is not often discussed in trauma is injustice. It’s unfair and unjust that children are robbed of a happy and safe childhood, that there is genocide, wars, that people go hungry and without clean water; there is so much injustice and unfairness in this world that it can be really hard to come to terms with and completely digest.
Maybe the biggest sense of injustice when we’ve been traumatised is soul loss or susto; the loss of an essential part of yourself, or maybe not even having a sense of who you are to begin with. One of the biggest journeys we undertake when recovering from trauma is to embark on the journey back to our self, or to finding that self that we feel we’ve never known beyond the hurt. That journey is so worthwhile.
I know this is easier said than done. But the more we distract ourselves from painful emotions and experiences, the more residue they leave in our systems. That residue accumulates, one experience after the other, on and on, ad infinitum, until we end up with overflowing systems that generate symptoms.
One of the most powerful things we can do is to learn how to be with difficult emotions and their resulting physical sensations. This is called self-regulation in psychological jargon.
It really is a life changer because it allows us to experience, digest and metabolise painful emotions and experiences without them building up and becoming painful symptoms. Feeling pain frees us from that pain.
They say we teach what we most need to learn and this is certainly true in my case. I needed to learn how to be with painful emotions and experiences without running from them, so I know the value of it in my life. And I also know the price I pay when I don’t do it.
When you feel really upset about something, try and find a quiet place as soon as you can and feel what you’re feeling. It will calm down after a while, just wait and see. Tap for the courage to help you through this, do not tap to get rid of it, that just won’t work. Though of course you can tap on the feeling of wanting to get rid of it, that’s being honest with yourself, but there’s a subtle difference between the two.
You know that feeling of resistance that builds up inside your body when you approach something painful? It prevents you from feeling the pain yes, but it also prevents resolution of whatever caused the pain. So the pain just gets postponed for another day. It does not go away. Feel your pain, but go slowly and gently.
Another very common reason for being/feeling stuck is to be in two minds about something. That’s when we realise that there’s a conflict, many times, conflicts aren’t in our conscious awareness, but they’re still being played out in our life as our being stuck and/or not wanting or not knowing how to move forward in our life.
We might not even want to admit to conflicting feelings we have about certain people or situations. We think acknowledging or admitting it, is going to somehow make it more real. But it is real because it exists within you and you’re probably suffering the effects of that reality.
I have found that giving yourself the permission to contemplate something, without necessarily having to, or forcing yourself to take action, can be very powerful. We think action has to be taken if we admit to an internal conflict, but we have the choice of whether to act or not.
Try the following script, making sure to customise it for you. Tapping diagram.
Even though I’m in two minds about … I deeply and completely accept myself Even though I don’t feel the same about … that I do about … I accept how I feel Even though I’m conflicted about … I acknowledge that conflict(s) Even though I don’t even want to admit to … I completely accept myself and how I feel about this
Top of the head: This conflict
Eyebrow: I don’t like how it feels
Side of eye: Can I listen to the two sides? (or more as the case may be)
Under the eye: It’s harder to listen to …
Under the nose: It’s easier to listen to …
Under the chin: Because …
Collar bone: I don’t want … to be true
Under the arm: Because …
Top of the head: Is it ok for me to feel ...
Eyebrow: And feel this other way too?
Side of eye: Can I give myself permission to hold two points of view (or more)
Under the eye: Until I stop fighting …
Under the nose: This conflict will continue
Under the chin: And I won’t be able to move forward
Collar bone: Is there some part of me that wants this?
Under the arm: Because I’m too afraid to move forward?
Top of the head: How does it feel to contemplate that?
Eyebrow: Can I hold this conflict?
Side of eye: Until I’m ready to decide
Under the eye: What feels better
Under the nose: I don’t have to rush anything
Under the chin: I can take my time
Collar bone: And that feels …
Under the arm: Am I okay with that?
One of the most defining characteristics of being traumatised is feeling/being stuck. The frustration, powerlessness and helplessness that this causes can often retraumatise us, long after any traumatic experiences are over.
Feeling stuck feels awful, it is like being on a merry-go-round that you can’t get off. The harder you try to get off, the more stuck you feel. It’s excruciating.
It might sound counterintuitive, but the way to come unstuck is not to fight the stuckness and try to get rid of it, it’s to find out what has led to us being stuck so we can release those patterns.
In most cases, it’s because we haven’t learned how to process difficult emotions and complete any actions they inspired (if it were even possible). This overwhelms our capacity to cope and this is never more true than in developmental trauma. The developmental stage you are at when you experience something difficult is key to you being able to handle it. Babies in utero are extremely vulnerable to traumatic stress, as are infants and children in their early years.
Developmental trauma is repeated trauma, there’s rarely a let up. It changes how you develop (hence the name), your nervous system becomes wired to avoid even the slightest threat which in the long run exhausts your reserves and puts a massive strain on your health, both mental and physical.
Developmental trauma is quite different to single event traumatic experiences, which thankfully, are mostly one offs. This is not to minimise or maximise anyone’s experience, but if your very foundation is shaky, your resilience is compromised. If you’ve had a solid start, you’ll have more handling capacities for adversity even in really difficult circumstances. The importance of support cannot be overestimated when it comes to resolving trauma.
If you have the support of your caregivers, rather than they being the source of the trauma, traumatic experience might not even develop into trauma. If trauma does develop, your chances of overcoming it are very good.
It’s not that you can’t overcome developmental trauma, because you certainly can, but it’s usually a longer journey because you have to repair and/or build the foundations upon which you can stand and thrive.
Being kind and gentle with ourselves during this process is crucial. Watch out for any signs of desperation or urgency, this is not a sign to try/struggle more until you finally “fix” yourself. It is a sign to relax and take it easy, do nothing, rest, give your nervous system a well deserved break. You’re not broken, you’re learning a different way of being in the world, you’re finding out who you are and how to be true to that self, and that is a life journey, not a destination.
It doesn’t matter whether a threat is real or perceived, our nervous system will react in the same way. What we can do, is assess whether any danger or threat is immediate; that is, is it happening right now and does it require action on our part? (If we can act that is). This is the beauty of emotions, they are action requiring neurological programmes (from Antonio Damasio).
When we assess threat this way (as adults needless to say, this information does not apply to children), we don’t minimise or shame ourselves for being on high alert, especially when the danger is perceived or we don’t know where the sense of danger/threat is coming from (this usually happens when memories are implicit and from very early on in life).
This interview of the wonderful and exuberant Donna Eden by Tami Simon from Sounds True, gives an exercise that you can practice to evolve your flight, fight and freeze response. Listen in from 49 minutes onward, though the entire interview is worth listening to.
What’s worse? Being in a so-called low vibration state of being sad, suppressing sadness or feeling sad?
What do you think will make you happier and healthier? Shaming yourself or others for being in a low vibratory state? Or pushing things away so you don’t feel them? Though you know from experience that you’ll pay the price later.
Feeling sad is not crime, though you’d never know that in some circles. You don’t need any more shame heaped upon you for feeling the way you do. In the film Inside Out[spoiler alert], Riley is leaving home to go back to Minnesota and it is the sadness when she thinks of her parents that stops her. The message is that all emotions have their role and place, depending on the situation in which we find ourselves. The obsession with being happy at all costs, no matter what is going on in our lives, is a pressure we can all do without.
Emotions are dynamic, they change when we allow them to change by feeling them. It’s when emotions are at their crescendo that we’re most likely to resist feeling them, because they might feel really uncomfortable and overwhelming, but if we can just stick with it for 60 seconds or so to see if it starts ebbing, we’d have the felt experience of bobbing with our emotions instead of crashing against them.
This makes us more resilient by increasing our capacity to feel difficult emotions without becoming overwhelmed by them. In psychological jargon, it is called self/emotional regulation, and it is a really valuable skill to have in life. It makes such a difference to our well being to be able to feel difficult emotions so they can be processed instead of becoming stuck in our bodies and minds causing dis-ease and illness.
